


Nothing's gonna harm you

by Runespoor



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Bruce's Issues Are Legion, Gen, Gotham Is Alive, Scary Bat God
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-12-19
Updated: 2011-12-19
Packaged: 2017-10-27 13:32:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/296382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Runespoor/pseuds/Runespoor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It will be a long time before the scene is noticed; in this part of town people know better than to report shots.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Nothing's gonna harm you

**Author's Note:**

> The last line is from The Lesson. And the title is from Sweeney Todd. Which should tell you everything you need to know.

For hours the child kneels in his parents' blood.

Pearls glimmer in the dark, dirty with the carlights from the nearby street, darkening with red. It will be a long time before the scene is noticed; in this part of town people know better than to report shots. ( _There has been another shot fired in a parallel street since then, echoing on the brick above the boy's head; he never hears it, walled in silence and pain._ )

In the boy's eyes the world turns to ice.

The scrape of asphalt under death-soaked pants, night air nipping on his neck, and the bones of his fingers protesting the clench of his fists, he will not remember them. Not until such time as again asphalt scratches his cheek, and the cold sweeps down his chest, and he makes his hand into a punch. Sense memory will doom him to a life of struggle and failure as surely as his own mind, perfect memory engraving this night even behind the shroud of repression.

The air of the streets has coiled in his lungs and when he takes a breath of the city air he will find himself back here again, forever and without knowing.

The smell of the streets has entrenched his hair and clothing, fainter and more insidious than the smokes of a fire, and a decade abroad in other cities and faraway places will not scourge it from his nostrils. This little boy may never grow up.

 _Mother and Father sprawled on the ground, eyes blank, unseeing. His arms wide open, her hat fallen. A strand of her hair has dislodged; Bruce can count on one hand how often he's seen her with her hair in disarray._

 _Tragedy_ , the papers will write.

 _An orphan just a boy_ , the share-holders will think.

 _Oh god, oh my god that's horrible, that poor kid, I can't believe-- you think he's ever going to get over it? No, you're right, I don't know how you can ever get over something like that. God, I just wish he'll get better_ , the tender-hearted people of sun-kissed plains will babble, and forget.

What can happen to a little boy all alone in the world in a few hours time, the world will never know.

 _Along came a lady, dark and tall like his mother is. She smiles at him under the veil of her hat, and extends her black-gloved hand toward him._

 _“Bruce.”_

The boy looks up; when he stands, eyes burning and glistening with shadows, she strokes, with the tip of her fingers, the soft skin beneath his eyes. If there were ever tears sticking his eyelashes together, no-one will ever the wiser. Forever his eyes are dried.

 _“Come,” the lady says._

 _He follows, the softness of her gloves like wings on his cheek._

For hours he kneels in his parents' blood.

-

 _What makes you think I was alone?_


End file.
